User Reviews

This is an absolutely brilliant silent film that shows great insight of the lives of the Inuk people of the Northern Canadian arctic way before there was a such thing as National Geography Videos. The fact that these people survived in such a hostile environment is amazing. Having worked as a prospector and explorer in Arctic Canada among the Inuit, Director Flaherty was familiar with his subjects and set out to document their lifestyle. Flaherty had shot film in the region prior, but that footage was destroyed in a fire started when Flaherty dropped a cigarette onto the original camera negative which was highly flammable nitrate stock. It would be interesting to see that footage, but as Flaherty says, he remember what were in there, and re-shoot the best scenes. Flaherty therefore made Nanook of the North in its place. As the first nonfiction work of its scale, Nanook of the North was ice-breaking cinema. It captured an exotic Inuit people in their remote hostile environment, rather than a facsimile of reality using actors and props on a studio set. It was one of the first documentaries ever made. The film shows the traditional Inuit methods of hunting, fishing, igloo-building, and other customs were shown with accuracy, and the compelling story of a man and his family struggling against nature, but little do some people know that it was all somewhat staged. First off, the movie should be call Allakariallak of the Frozen North, because Nanook was really Allakariallak. Flaherty choose the name 'Nanook' due to the Inuk people many legends about bears. The Nanook was the Bear God of the Inuit and decided if hunters would be successful or not. The two wives shown in the film wasn't really Nanook's wives, but Flaherty. Flaherty also exaggerated the peril to Inuit hunters with his claim, often repeated, that Allakariallak had died of starvation two years after the film was completed, whereas in fact he died at home, likely of tuberculosis. About that home-- it's a real wooden house, not a igloo as view in the film. They used igloos only when a blizzard caught them up during the hunting in the middle of nowhere, not all the time. It's urban legend to think that Inuits live always in igloos. Flaherty wanted them to build a igloo despite them living in a house to show their culture. The first building of the igloo was too small for the camera and the dome collapsed. Then when they finally succeeded in making the igloo it was too dark for photography. Instead, the images of the inside of the igloo in the film were actually shot in a special three-walled igloo for Flaherty's bulky camera so that there would be enough light for it to capture interior shots. I feel for the Inuit people that day, when Flaherty ask them to build three 2 and half igloos for no reasons. Another thing Flaherty staged was some hunting sequences, Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting, Flaherty encouraged him to hunt with harpoon in the fashion of his ancestors in order to capture the way the Inuit lived before European influence, making it harder for Allakariallak. Sometimes its better to use traditional weapons to hunt; because if you shoot an animal in the water it will more often than not sink quickly, so a dart with a barbed detachable point is thrown from a great distance using an atlatl, that way the sea mammal won't sink. Soon to be identified by the harpoon floating in water with line detached. Flaherty was a bit of a jerk, but the full collaboration of the Eskimos was key to Flaherty's success as the Eskimos were his film crew and many of them knew his camera better than he did. Flaherty tries to make the Eskimos on the film look like they couldn't understand technology such in the case of the trade post scene and a gramophone. The scene is meant to be a comical one as the audience laughs at the naiveté of Nanook and people isolated from Western culture. In truth, the scene was entirely scripted and Nanook knew what a gramophone was. It wasn't the only comical humor. There was a scene where Nanook and his family come out of a small kayak like a bunch of clowns out of a small car. It's a cinematic effect. Each person in the kayak was a separate filmed shot, edited together in a convincing fashion. The titles are carefully used to hide it. It's a hint at Flaherty's sense of humor. It was a little disappointing finding out that a lot of the movie was staged. Flaherty's time both staging action and attempting to steer documentary action have come to be considered unethical amongst cinema verite purists, because I believe such reenactments deceive the audience, but in this case, it works to make the audience understand the culture more and more. Flaherty defended his work by stating that a filmmaker must often distort a thing to catch its true spirit. It was a huge success, and in the following years, many others would try to follow in Flaherty's success with "primitive peoples" films. While this film is a true peace of art. I think the greatest fascination comes from this is that it fact the truth on most of the modern propaganda-documentaries, that kills the basic, pure form of documentaries. While the film will showing be shown in Anthropology class. I wouldn't say it's a ethnography work or salvage ethnography. Enthnography are supposed to be an observation where the people watching don't influence or act, so to say this is a ethnography film is wrong. Check the movie out if you want. Also check out the Long Exile, by Melanie McGrath discusses the making of this film and the people depicted in it in depth and Nanook Revisited.

Directed by Robert J. Flaherty, this moving feature about the hardships faced by an Inuit family is one of the seminal films of the silent era and brought about his reputation as "the father of the documentary".

Although only having spent a few weeks out in the icy wilderness, Flaherty presents us with a series of beautiful vignettes that capture the absolute essence of the daily struggles for survival that Nanook and his people face. The audiences follows them on their long treks in the constant search for food; picking their way over floes and towers of ice in order to catch a fish or hunt seal and walrus. Yet amongst the hardships and privations, Flaherty also allows glimpses of the tenderness and love within the family. The joy of a meal, the warmth of a shelter, the fascinating communal construction of an igloo. The humanity of the Inuits is rendered with heartwarming affection.

However, often setting his subjects against the bleak yet stunning vistas of unending snow, Flaherty leaves the audience in no doubt that the environment is as much the star. Some critics argue that Nanook is not a true documentary as Flaherty staged some scenes and directed his subjects. However, these critics are wildly missing the point. Nanook Of the North is as much about the barren landscape that Nanook and his clan wander. At its centre, this film is the age old tale of the battle between man and nature.

This is none more evident of the films wonderful final scenes. Caught in a blizzard, the family are forced to find refuge in an abandoned igloo. A happy respite together from the wild storm outside. This scene has been given extra poignancy with the tragic knowledge that Nanook and his family perished in such a blizzard a few months after the film was released.

It's a sad footnote to a tremendous film. A masterpiece of film making that inspires and enthrals and, most importantly, celebrates nature, life and humanity.

This silent film was made at the time when separation between drama and documentary did not exist, so is widely (and incorrectly) considered to be the first ever documentary film, I found it in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and I was really looking forward to it. Basically filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty spent a year living with and documenting the life of Nanook and his family, a group of Eskimos, or Inuits, living in the Arctic Circle. The family consists of Nanook, a superb fisherman and hunter; his wife Nyla; his other wife Cunayou; and his sons Allee and Allegoo. Approximately three-hundred nomadic people live in the Canadian Arctic, on the eastern shores of Hudson's Bay, in a region called Ungava. The film mostly follows the family as they travel through the white wilderness, in kayaks and on dog sled, they occasionally encounter western civilisation, but primarily live a life of subsistence. Nanook and the men stay alive hunting food, which is very difficult, their food sources are primarily sea related - salmon, seal and walrus, but they do occasionally encounter land animals as well, such as white foxes, polar bears and deer. The harsh weather conditions provide uncertain opportunities, and the ice shifting causes problems for both travelling and hunting, but Nanook manages to find a way for him and his family through the difficult situations. The best scene of the film is Nanook's amazing architectural skill and speed when building an igloo for him and his family to spend the night, using his large knife to sculpt the structure, creating makeshift ice bricks and a "glass" window. I agree the film is perhaps primitive looking by today's standards, a man and his family surviving in the frozen wastes, and it is obvious a few of the scenes were setup, but it remains a historic, ground- breaking piece of work, it should be celebrated as an inspirational landmark classic silent documentary. It was number 44 on The 50 Greatest Documentaries. Good!

for its day, "Nanook..." was well done, despite the liberties taken by Flaherty, the director.

it can be argued that there is no such thing as a "true" documentary.

that the director cannot be wholly objective.

however, what Flaherty achieved here in this film is remarkable and significant for film-making.

I saw this film tonight on TCM as part of a special monthly series on Native Americans.

it was specifically mentioned that Allakariallak, who played Nanook, did not die from starvation, as several reviews here on IMDb.com have stated.

He died from tuberculosis.

I found this film electrifying until, in reading more about it, I learned that some of the scenes were staged for dramatic effect - that Nanook, in the scene in which he bites on the record as though he hasn't seen one is really mocking us, that the Inuk use spears when in fact they hunted with guns, and that the race to construct an igloo at the end of the film were all staged. I found this sad. I don't think it completely devalues the movie though. Director Robert Flaherty still spent a great length of time with the people with whom he worked and we see a culture and a way of life that we would otherwise know nothing of. The shots of the family, the revelation about how to fit multiple people in a canoe, the disclosure of how to make an igloo, and the use of furs are all fascinating. I was sad to learn that Flaherty staged scenes for dramatic effect but this doesn't completely devalue this film. We see a lot of unvarnished glimpses of the spartan life which the Inuk undoubtedly lived. For that, I am profoundly grateful. I found this terrible and thought that it was a terrible manipulation of circumstances for dramatic ends. It's enough for me to rate this movie a significant amount lower. That said, it is very interesting.